


Kindling

by FlatlandDan



Series: Burning Bright [3]
Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mental Health Issues, PTSD, Religion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-03
Updated: 2013-01-03
Packaged: 2017-11-23 12:50:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/622322
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FlatlandDan/pseuds/FlatlandDan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It doesn't get any easier, but Clint doesn't want it too.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Kindling

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Pyroblaze18 for the beta read :)

 

It doesn't get any easier, but Clint doesn't want it too. He wakes up next to Phil a half dozen times a night with guilt ripping through him because he isn't where he should be. Half way up a hill, in a barn or curled up next to Phil: it doesn't matter which one he feels is right. He doesn't think he's really in either place and that's the guilt that tears him apart and leaves him struggling to breathe.

Phil is a rock for him, quietly easing his way around SHIELD and The Avengers, making him eat, getting him to appointments and leaving him to think. He knows he hasn't been easy, that he's been horribly selfish because Phil is literally back from the dead and Clint knows he's still on medical leave. He can't bring himself to ask details of the miracle that brought Phil back because he isn't sure if he wants to hear about tech or genuine otherworldly influences.

The God thing has thrown everyone, himself included. Phil takes him to see Father MacRae without comment and hasn't asked what they talk about since that first meeting. Clint wouldn't know what to tell him anyhow. They talk about penitence, forgiveness and sin. They talk about the time Clint's father hit a cat with the car, the time he had shot a horse with a broke leg in the circus and both pretend that they aren't actually talking about different circumstances. The conversations are allegorical enough that he can distance himself from the words, and that brings him confort. When they talk about family he excuses himself and leaves early, which is better then he managed with the SHIELD psychiatrist who he told to shut up. He feels guilty about that too.

He knows without any of them saying that it isn't actually about God. It's about the guilt he's been carrying since he was born another mouth to feed. The horrible, sickening guilt that none of it matters because he's failing just often enough that it's eating him up. It's about the fact that he's been with SHIELD for seven years now and being absolved of making the bigger target decisions hasn't helped. For all his self imposed loner status, all the distance he puts between himself and people, he still has red on his ledger. He has red on his ledger because despite all the training and the pain people have caused in his life he's still human. He has heart. 

It's four am and he has his hands clasped against his sternum. He's forcing himself to breathe in time with Phil, curled up with his back to Clint and mercifully still asleep. It's been thirteen days since he came back from the village. His bruises have faded and tomorrow he is back on full status as an Avenger. 

The day before he'd found paperwork, tactfully left out, effectively removing him from the SHIELD roster. There was no conversation about it, just a piece of paper with Phil and Director Fury's signature on it. He felt relief for two minutes before the guilt set in and he had gone up high for the day, watched Phil watch television and read from thirty feet above.

He's never been more confused in his life.

"A penny for your thoughts?" Phil's voice cuts through the stillness and Clint bites back a curse. He wanted Phil to sleep through all this.

"I'm sorry I woke you." Phil huffs and rolls over. 

"You didn't wake me up. The skin healing on my chest woke me up." Clint let's the silence come back, forces himself to unclench his hands and tilt his head towards Phil.

"Did you believe me that first night?"

"Yes." Phil's voice is firm and Clint knows he isn't lying. "But I knew you'd change your mind."

"You still got me out of SHIELD."

"Because you needed to leave SHIELD."

"But not the Avengers." 

"No, not them. They'll be good for you." 

"Because alien invasions are far better for me then SHIELD missions." Phil smiles at him, but doesn't make a move forward.

"Because this time you'll have a say in everything. This time you'll be able to say no." 

There is absolutely nothing different about the next morning, when he wakes up. He doesn't feel more in control of his life then he did when he went to sleep.  But he follows Phil off his floor and down to the communal one without any comment.

"It's an informal daily briefing, just a chance for everyone to have some idea where everyone else is going to be. It's ok to just say you'll be on your floor." They're in the elevator and Phil is fussing. If Clint was wearing something other then a tshirt and fleece pj bottoms he's sure Phil would be smoothing his clothes out and the thought makes him smile.

"Then why are you acting like it's my first day of school?" Phil stops his smoothing and smiles back. He's tired, Clint can tell. 

"I just want this to work."

Clint's met up with all of the team, mostly individually, over the last week.  Everyone has been unfailingly nice to him, the way people are when they visit a sick relative. Tony had stopped by first to upgrade his Starkpad and ask him about his floor, then quiet Steve to assure him of his place on the team. Bruce had sought him out one snowy afternoon with tea and stories of his travels to India. He had woken from one nightmare to Natasha curled against him. _He had to go_ , she whispered to him as she carded her fingers through his hair. _It was important. But I'm here for you._ Thor alone had left him alone, which Clint respected. They had known each other for three hours in total, the majority of which Clint had spent actively trying to kill his brother. 

But now a scene opened up in front of him, bags of bagels on a table and various meats an spreads. Thor was laughing, his booming voice filling every corner of the room and making Clint want to curl in on himself. This was family, again. Family that deliberately walked into the line of fire, not ran away from it. This was something that couldn't end well.

"Abraham. Anna. Grandma Maria. Ezekiel. Thomas. Alison." The words slip out of him just as the panic begins and he takes a step back into Phil.

"Steve. Tony. Bruce. Thor. Natasha." Phil whispers into his ear and Clint feels himself still even as his heart rabbits in his chest. 

"Phil." Clint finishes softly and Phil nods. 

"You can do this."  

Clint stumbles forward and into the nearest chair, hands holding onto the bottom of it as though it was a life raft. Phil sits beside him and tosses some food on his plate. No one else has said a word, which Clint isn't sure is a blessing or a curse.  He piles the cheese and meat onto his bagel, ignores the tomatoes Phil is pushing further onto his plate, and tries to focus.

"It's good to see you, Clint." Clint jerks his eyes up and comes face to face with Steve, sitting across the table from him with a notebook perched beside his plate. "I don't know how much Phil has told you about breakfast." Clint isn't sure there is a question in there, but there is certainly a pause and he knows he's expected to fill it.

"Uhhh. Daily movement meeting?" he hazards. Steve frowns a little.

"I told you if we left it up to Agent he'd make family time sound like something out of the military. Breakfast, Clint, is a chance for us to remember that behind our capes, cowls, freakishly mutated DNA and suits of genius armour we are all human and need to eat. Blueberry?" Clint silently reaches over and takes a handful out of the bowl that Tony thrusts towards him. 

"I thought I'd make things a bit more familiar to Clint." Phil replies, his voice nice and terrifyingly even. Tony wags a fork in reply. 

"Bad Agent. SHIELD fucked him up and you're trying to make things seem like that? News flash for you kids, we're not at SHIELD anymore. We're eating breakfast together because it's boring to eat meals alone and bad guys statistically sleep in." 

"It's true, he hired a PhD student to statistically look at the Initiative including when bad guys attack." Bruce is smiling over his coffee as he speaks. "I think it's so that in a few months he can start every conversation with the words 'statistically speaking' and not have me call him on his bullshit." 

"Aww Bruce, you call me on my bullshit all the time." 

"That's because I'm the only person who understands what you're saying half the time."

"I'm getting better!" Steve replies indignantly. Tony moves to pat him on the head and Steve bats his hand away, but there is a smile on his face. 

"Indeed! Steve and I are making good inroads into modern culture. Agent Coulson mentioned that you are a fan of genres of entertainment which we have not been introduced too." Clint feels himself being drawn back into the conversation at Thor's words. Tasha has settled next him and now he's bracketed by two comforting presences. 

"I like dance music, drum and base mostly. I read crappy adventure books. I watch cartoons."

"Cartoons! Yes! This is the medium for which I have been instructed to speak to you about. Tell me of the yellow man and his family!" Thor looks at him completely earnestly, an entire waffle hanging off his fork, and Clint doesn't find himself struggling for words as he tries to explain The Simpsons. Thirty minutes later and they are on the couch, excused from dishes due to "necessary cultural education duties". Four hours later and Clint finds himself still on the couch, Phil sitting in the armchair pretending to do paperwork with glasses perched on nose, Thor, Steve and Tony arguing over leaving pizzas on manhole covers as a social experiment. He hasn't thought much about anything except what to show them next since they left the table. He hasn't thought about the mountain, about his past or his future. The biggest decision he's made has involved children's television. He looks up and catches Phil's eye, knows his lips are already forming the names he isn't ready to forget. But Phil smiles at him, cocks his head towards to television and settles further into the chair. 

"I didn't really do anything today" Clint says later as they're lying face to face under blankets.

"You did enough." Phil's voice is fond, sleepy, and he reaches over to push Clint onto his back so he can use a shoulder as a pillow. So he can feel when Clint's muscles tighten in the night, every flinch of his body. Clint would mind, except he can feel Phil's heart beating right next to side, his chest going up and down, and he won't begrudge Phil any comfort he needs when he gets so much.

"I watched cartoons with the team. All day." 

"Two weeks ago I wasn't sure you'd leave this bed again. A week ago I wasn't sure you'd  talk to any of them. This morning I didn't know if you'd sit down at that table. Six hours ago I thought you would die laughing at a robot chicken. That's enough."

"What if this is as good as it gets?" Clint asks him after a pause. "What if I can't be in the field?"

"Then that'll be enough."

 


End file.
